Harry Potter: A Darker Perspective
by A-D-E-E-E-R
Summary: From each good story to the next, the characters are different. No character appears in one story and another. Apart from me. I am in every story and every life. I am part of you. Sorry, how rude of me; let me introduce myself. I am death, and my story starts with one Tom Marvolo Riddle.
1. Chapter 1

I have been exceedingly busy lately. I know this is a phrase overused and overstated by humans – I hear it too often in my profession – but my case really is genuine. To put things into perspective, I believe that the last time that I slept was roughly two hundred years ago. That was when the population was low and manageable. And while disease and poverty killed many back then, I still had enough time to collect up their souls and have a little free time to myself afterwards. Time to observe.

My average day consisted of a little early morning soul reaping, just nice and gentle, usually no murders at that time. Mostly people who have slipped away in their sleep. I like them the best. They don't have time to get worked up so their souls are extremely warm and relaxed. Minimal resistance. You can see the appeal.

Later on, maybe the odd killing. Generally pretty relaxed, still. Then when things quietened down, I would snoop. What? Don't pretend that you wouldn't if you were me. I remember once watching a heated card game with the Earl of Sandwich in 1756, you wouldn't want to miss that.

Ah, the good old days. But, of course things couldn't stay leisurely for me, and the population began to grow and from 1804 (were it hit one billion) onwards, it spiked up to seven billion.

I will let you absorb that for a moment. Seven billion. That is seven billion people's souls that I have to gather. Seven. Billion. And more just kept being born! It was like a conveyor belt throwing human after human at me until I was a blur being dragged around the world in a million different places, in a million different times, yet all in the space of a newborn baby's blink.

Needless to say, I lost some of my natural charm due to the lack of snooping on my part. I became Mr Grumpy, I admit it. It got to the point where I didn't even laugh when I floated past a picture of the grim reaper – the scythe always cracks me up. I just picked up the dead and left.

But then something happened. Something that changed my perspective on life – and death for that matter – entirely.

I remember the day, cold and wet. Mist circled my feet like ghostly eels swimming across the sodden gravel pavement. The date was 31st of December 1926. I had, as always, sensed that my presence was needed. I had also sensed a birth extremely close to the area that I was being pulled to.

I wondered placidly as I glided through London – for that was the place – if I was perhaps being summoned to a still birth or a premature baby unable to make it. These deaths did not bother me anymore. Not after the millions, perhaps billions of them that I had seen over the millenniums. Their souls were definitely the brightest, untainted by the misery of living, which made them much more pleasant to extract.

With this mindset, I carried on to my destination and felt the tingling sensation inside of me reach its peak. I looked up the path to see a woman hunched over a small bundled up baby, hobbling up the steps of a building. Still thinking that it was the baby that I was to reap, I continued up to the pair.

Then, something caught me by surprise. The mother's left leg buckled and her weight shifted to the side. Rendered helpless to gravity and her unbalance, she collapsed on the steps. It was then, peering up at the pale face and dark eyes that I realised that it wasn't the baby that was dying. It was the mother. Shame- she didn't look like she was going to be pleasant.

As always, I reached out one of my bony hands and rested it on the dying woman's head. A warm rush swam through my cold, bloodless veins as I saw her life. She was born in 1907, a pure-blood witch, her mother was collected by when she was born, and her name was Merope Gaunt.

Merope turned her head slightly, feeling a faded version of my icy grip. I believe human's describe the feeling as 'someone walking over your grave'. How fitting.

She blinked several times. The closer she got to dying, the stronger the vision of me was. And the more physical my grip became. Her eyes widened as she understood who I was and tried to fight as they all do, but her limbs wouldn't co-operate. Soon, her eyes flickered shut and a last breath was puffed from her lips. I caught it in my draping sleeve.

As my solemn duty decreed, I placed my hand over her unseeing eyes and gathered up her colder than usual soul.

Another misconception with humans is that the soul resides in the heart. This is, of course, absurd. The heart is merely an organ that pumps blood around. Why would that be your soul? Is that truly a representation of your life: an ugly pulsing mass that forces foul smelling liquid through tubes? That sounds even more morbid than me.

As the saying goes 'the eyes are the window to the soul'. Even a blind man's eyes create visions of beauty for him to pretend to see. It chooses what to let you see and what not to. To put it into context, someone's soul may turn a blind eye to a homeless man. Another may notice immediately and throw him a penny. Our mind's eye, that is who we really are. Or rather, who you are. I am something different. Humans wither and decay, I am bound to clean up your mess. I guess I got the rotten end of the deal.

Finally, Merope Gaunt's soul had been plucked. I held it in my skeletal palm and cupped my other hand over it so that the little ball of dull grey light was trapped. Her soul was incredibly poignant: few were that grey. Nevertheless, I squeezed my palms together and the light pulsed once before being transported to the afterlife.

My job being over, I began to retreat back to the shadows where I was beginning to get the tingling feeling again. However, for the first time in my long, long life, and for some reason that I didn't know then but know now, I ignored the feeling and turned back to the corpse of Merope. I know now that it was intuition that had me finding myself turning on my heel.

I wasn't concentrating on Merope, though. I was looking directly at the baby still clutched in the lifeless woman's arms. It didn't cry, it didn't squirm, it just looked. At me. As if it could see me. But that was impossible, wasn't it? It wasn't dying.

His eyes bore into mine. They were a dark, dark blue. Icy. Almost… - I don't know. Even to this day, I cannot conjure words to describe those eyes. And I am death, for Lucifer's sake! I have devoured the souls of Dickens, Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Tolkien, and yet words fail me. That was when I should have realised what that baby was to become. When Death itself gets chills.

Uncharacteristically perturbed, I reached out to touch the baby. However, as soon as my finger tip brushed against his fine black tufts of hair, I jerked back as what felt like a bolt of electricity coursed through me. I cradled my hand to my chest. Only two words had screamed at me when I had touched him: Tom Riddle.

I straightened up and regarded my surroundings, anything to break eye contact with Riddle. I noticed for the first time the name of the building that the steps belonged to: Wool's Orphanage. I switched my gaze back to the baby. Merope must have known that she was dying.

"Until the next time, Tom Riddle," I rasped, my voice a chilling echo on the air.

But Tom didn't shiver or cry at the chill. A light flickered on in the porch of the orphanage and a stout woman gave a shrill scream at the corpse on her steps. She immediately stopped as she noticed Tom and hurried out. She picked him up in her arms and carried him inside, calling for others to help with the mother.

All the time, I watched. Invisible to all once again. And as I turned on my heel to answer the call of another ripe death, my mind was on Tom Riddle. I believed that I had not seen the last of him by far (excluding his death).

How right I was. It was in fact, nine years later that Tom and I crossed paths again. But that is a story that will have to wait for the time being. Ever since I picked up my quill and began to scribble down the first few words of this book, the tingling has been getting worse. I cannot ignore it any longer, I must do my duty. Sadly. I am quite comfortable here.

I shouldn't be too long, however. There is only a couple to gather tonight, it is unusually quiet so I ought to make the most of it.

You shall be hearing from me soon, providing another plague doesn't erupt. Sit tight, dear reader.

Yours sincerely,

Death.

* * *

Author's Note: So this is my first crack at a Harry Potter fic :). I have loved Harry Potter since I can remember so I thought why not? XD

Don't be frightened to tell me that it is crap, haha. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

Please Review,

Abby

X


	2. Chapter 2

It was supposed to be a quiet night, last night. Of course, there is no such thing as a 'quiet night' anymore. So much death. Too many people to collect. Ever since It began, the death toll has been astronomical. Of course, I haven't got to It yet. I just flicked back in my book and I realise that I left you when I was about to tell you about my second meeting with Tom Riddle.

Of course, it is only common courtesy to carry on were one left off. However, since I am no mortal man and suck up souls for a living, my idea of courtesy is quite different to yours. And by that, I mean that I have none. I am tired and weary and old and decrepit so I shall not follow the rules. And since I am death, there is no one really to admonish me for it.

So I will start with dear, sweet Merope Gaunt.

Only when I had extracted her soul had I realised that I had been drawn to her before. Though, I am drawn multiple times to a large amount of humans – near death experiences and the like – so I cannot be expected to remember faces. I remember souls. And I remembered Merope's soul because I had thought that I would be extracting it long before that night outside Wool's Orphanage.

A couple of years previous, I had felt the familiar pull in my chest and followed it until I came to a small, well-to-do village called Little Hangleton. A wizarding village, I may add. I floated over the country road bordered by high, tangled hedgerows, beneath a blue summer sky to the village. I resisted the urge to ignore the tingling and head back to Australia where it was winter. I hate summer. It is too light and jolly and sunny. It makes my skin crawl.

Ahead of me, a plump middle-aged man waddled along, adjusting his horn-rimmed glasses to read the signposts shrouded in brambles at the side of the road. I wondered if this was the man that I was being drawn to, but quickly expelled that thought at the sight of him. He looked too healthy to be dying. A little on the podgy side but still relatively healthy. Of course, he may have been about to suffer a horrendous accident, but I usually have a pretty long lag time when it comes to injuries. There was no reason to expect them.

Realising that the man was headed for Little Hangleton, also, I followed behind him at quite an unhurried pace. The dead didn't seem to be that bothered if I come to them a little later than expected.

The man's cloak swished with every footfall and it was beginning to get on my nerves. Immensely. I had just had a hard day at the Royal Hospital in France with a nasty outbreak of cholera, and was more than a little stressed with the whole situation. A swishing cloak was the last thing I needed. I hoped that he would remove the cloak in the day's heat. However, when he didn't, I reached out my calloused hand and ripped the cloak from his back and let it float away in the breeze.

The man (whom I later found out thirty years later when he was taken by a vicious case of septicaemia that his name was Bob Ogden) whirled on his heel and whipped out his wand. His eyes darted around frantically looking for anyone hidden in the bushes that may have pulled his cloak. It was all quite amusing.

Seeing that no-one was there and fobbing himself off with a mutter about the wind, Ogden carried on down the lane, but not without a few uneasy glances behind him. Suddenly, the path that I was following Ogden on veered a hard left and fell away, sloping steeply down a hillside. Once I had gotten to the brow, I was delivered with the view of the entire village. My eyes scanned across. Little Hangleton village was nestled between two hills, sat snug in the middle. The church and graveyard were the first things I honed in on – me being Death and all. Across the valley, set on the opposite hillside, was a very handsome manor house surrounded by a wide expanse of velvety green lawn. I would take a crypt over that, any day of the week.

My original plan was to abandon Ogden once he had led me to Little Hangleton, but when he turned left up a gap in the hedge, I realised that the tingling was forcing me in the same direction. I wondered in that moment if Ogden was a doctor on his way to treat the person that I was visiting (assuming they were sick, of course).

I followed him on to a narrow dirt track bordered by higher and wilder hedgerows than those we had left behind. This provided me with more dismal surroundings, for which I was grateful. The path was crooked, rocky, and potholed, sloping downhill like the last one, and it seemed to be heading for a patch of even darker trees ahead. Excellent.

It was a few moments before my eyes discerned the building shrouded in the overgrowth of the forest. It seemed to me that it was a very peculiar place to build a house. From my experience of humans, you all like to bathe in the sun and have views of sloping hills and countryside. All perfectly hateful things, yet, there you go.

Ogden stepped over the array of nettles with a grimace on his face as some of their stinging leaves brushed his bare leg. I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue petulantly at him like a human child as I floated over them with minimal effort. Ogden continued up to the house with his wand enclosed tightly in his grasp. He and I both looked up at the front door – him with horror, and me with mild amusement – at the dead snake nailed to the wood.

I raised my eyebrows as a rustling and a crack was heard, and a man in tatty rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden, who leapt backwards so fast that he stood on the tails of his frock-coat and stumbled.

_"You're not welcome," _the ragged man hissed – in parseltongue, I do believe.

The man was obviously a wizard, I had discerned that much, but he was ruggard and unshaven with the posture of a Neanderthal. He looked the part, holding a crooked wand in one hand and a bloodied knife in the other. No doubt I would be getting called soon enough to the owner of the blood on the blade. Joy.

"Err – good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic –" Ogden started, backing up a few paces before speaking.

_"You're not welcome." _

I rolled my eyes at the man still speaking parseltongue. He didn't have the intimidating effect on me – obviously – and so I found something quite irritating about his words and the way he looked. The eyes staring in the opposite directions actually looked quite comical from my point of view.

"Err – I'm sorry, I don't understand you," Ogden admitted nervously.

Something in the other man's face suddenly became less taunting, more stormy. A shadow fell over his eyes and he advanced towards Ogden with the knife and wand outstretched.

"Now, look," Ogden tried to reason, but was too late: there was a bang, and Ogden was on the floor, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.

"Morfin!" a loud voice yelled, and I assumed he was talking to the ruggard man from the tree.

An elderly man came hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically up and back down with a flump. I sighed; this was beginning to feel like a bad human soap opera.

"Ministry, it is?" the older man grunted, looking down at the sprawled out Ogden.

"Correct!" Ogden replied angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr Gaunt?"

"'S right," said Gaunt proudly. "Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did," Ogden snapped.

"Should have made your presence known then, shouldn't you? This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself."

As Ogden opened his mouth to spout some retort, I came to the conclusion that I was sick of this little drama. If one of them was about to die, I would come back later when the ones that did it had scarpered. It would be much quicker. I had too much other business to attend to.

However, as I turned to walk away, I saw the shadow of a human walk past the cracked window of the cottage. I was intrigued as to who would carry on working when violence like that was occurring just outside. Mostly, people scream and shout and make a scene and all manner of irking things.

I floated back up the path, over Ogden and brushed past Gaunt. He shivered slightly but shrugged it off, no doubt trying not to break the big 'tough guy' persona that he was going for. I tried not to grin as I ran my nails across the back of his neck. He turned in surprise but once again shrugged it off.

Already bored of that game – I had been playing it for millenniums – I continued inside the cottage. Only one other person was in the room, the girl I had seen pass the window. Merope. Her ragged dress was the exact same colour of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling with various squalid pots and pans in an overhead cupboard above her. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, dull rather heavy looking face. Her eyes, like what I assumed to be her brother, stared in opposite directions.

She slowly stirred the pot on the stove as I watched her. I could smell myself on her. She reeked of me. Reeked of death. Of course, then, I didn't know that she would die in childbirth, I just saw the flaming welts across her neck, and the way her skin seemed stretched too tightly over her bones. I just thought she was another abused daughter that I would have to take.

I won't bore you with Ogden and Gaunt – for they are rather boring – but I will tell you that the pinnacle of the tingling reached when Gaunt wrapped his filthy hands around Merope's neck and squeezed on her windpipe. I had stood closer then, wanting to grant her a swift death if the time came, but Gaunt let his daughter go when she was at her last gasp and she fell to a slump on the floor. Unconscious and shaken up, but ultimately alive.

I stayed until Ogden had left, and Gaunt Junior and Senior had hurtled after him, until it was just Merope and myself.

The girl had stayed propped against the wall until her father and brother had left, deeming it safer now that they were out of the way. She climbed unsteadily to her feet and stumbled over to the window with a look of hope in her eyes.

I followed her gaze and my sight landed on a horse and cart pulling along a handsome young man. I knew with one whiff in the air that he was a Muggle. Merope rested her bruised chin on her equally as bruised hand and let out dreamy sigh, watching the man ride his cart over the brow and out of sight.

She turned away from the window but the smile stayed on her face. She had no idea that the man she was smitten with would be her death. I placed a hand on her shoulder but she didn't shiver, she didn't even react. She was too far into her dream of marrying and running away with the handsome man named Tom Riddle.

She was too warm in her love to feel the cold in the reality.

There had been a many few times that I had visited Merope after that – usually when her father had suffered a bad day – but those follow the same premise as this does and would be exceedingly boring for you as the reader.

After this night's collection, I shall move on to Tom Riddle Junior's escapades at Wool's Orphanage. But for now, this is again goodnight.

Yours sincerely,

Death.

* * *

Thank you to those who followed and favourited!

Thanks very much for reading,

Please review,

Abby

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	3. Chapter 3

As I failed to previously, I have found the time in my schedule to recount the life of Tom Riddle at Wool's Orphanage. Of course, I shan't tell his entire life story since that would be very tiring for me, and extremely boring for you. Therefore, I shall only write down some of the more mysterious and mischievous moments of little Tom.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word 'mischievous' in that sentence. That implies that a child has a certain loveable feature and the extent of wrong doing reaches to putting plastic fingers in the treacle pudding. Tom was different.

It was the fifteenth of February when Tom was seven years old. Winter that year had been especially cold and bitter, dragging on for months more than it should have been. Unfortunately for the children at Wool's Orphanage, the cold was spreading a nasty fever around and so playing outside was temporarily banned until the weather faired up. That didn't bother Tom much. Going outside wasn't really his favourite pastime. There were too many children running and screaming and begging him to play hide-and-seek with them. No, he preferred to stay in his bedroom where it was quiet and where he could concentrate.

'Concentrate on what?' you may ask. That was the question pondered by every member of staff at the orphanage and one they still had to answer.

Tom had been shut up in his room for the better half of the morning and it had been very productive indeed. A tiny smirk played on his lips as he slipped off the side of his bed and walked into the hallway, taking care to lock his door behind himself. He walked down the corridor, looking discreetly out of the corner of his eye in every room that he passed. Until he found the spare bedroom.

Wool's Orphanage always had spare rooms on the off chance that they may get a visitor that may transpire to becoming a full-time resident suddenly. They always kept one room extra spare, if that makes sense. If a child turned up, they would pick from the other four on offer, but were not allowed to go in the fifth.

The fifth room was larger than others with a double bed at the back against a frosted window. Instead of wallpaper, there were glistening black tiles up the walls. But, that February fifteenth, something was different in the room that Tom Riddle always looked in. Instead of being blissfully empty and quiet, two children sat in the middle of the floor with their legs crossed, quietly giggling.

Tom narrowed his eyes as he peered through the crack in the door. The children were aged six and seven, Lucinda Brownly and Richard Hitchens.

"Are you ready?" Lucinda asked with a nervous smile.

Richard nodded eagerly and brought a small board from under the bed and dragged it in front of them both.

"Shut the curtains Lu'," he ordered.

Lucinda scrambled to her feet and climbed over the bed to pull the moreen drapery across the window. The thick fabric blocked out most of the light, only little rays peeking through the bottom.

"Do you have the matches?" she asked Richard.

He patted down his jacket pocket and nodded, pulling out the little yellow match box. He picked one out and blew on it once.

"Blow on it, Lu'. It's for good luck," Richard held the match to Lucinda's lips and she gave a small puff to the potassium cholarated end.

"You're silly, Richie," she laughed as he dragged the match along the rough side of the match box and a flame shot up from the end of the stick.

"We're going to get into so much trouble for this," Richie groaned but still with an excited smile.

You have no idea, Richard. You and little Lucinda are in for a surprise soon. I'll teach you to enter my room, Tom thought with a grimly happy face.

Richard placed the match to the wicks of the five candles they had surrounding the board and shook the match to extinguish the flame. He carelessly threw it over his shoulder and down the side of the bed.

It was then that Tom made out that the board was not a game board as he had first thought, it was a Ouija board. Excellent.

Lucinda and Richie took their places knelt opposite each other with their fingers on the planchette resting at the letter G.

"I'll ask the questions," Richie whispered to Lucinda before raising his voice to normal talking volume, "Are there any spirits in the room?"

The two children glanced at each other in anticipation. There was a hollow silence in the room and their fingers stayed exactly where they were.

"I said, are there any spirits here?" Richard repeated.

Silence.

Time to have a little fun, Tom grinned from his position behind the door.

Just as he had done in his bedroom for the morning, he concentrated and stiffened his muscles, staring at the planchette intently. He could feel the little surge of power in his veins and pushed it down to his fingers, his fingertips tingling. Tom then lifted his index finger so that it was in line with the planchette and drew a line in the air to the left.

Lucinda gasped as the planchette she was holding began to move slowly to the left.

Tom drew another invisible line diagonally down.

"Richie, Richie it has landed on YES. Oh dear Lord in Heaven," Lucinda breathed with wide eyes.

"Are you a friendly spirit?" Richie asked tremulously, thinking that they may have made a mistake trying to communicate with the dead.

From my own experience speaking with the departed never turns out well for those dialling the number.

Tom made a horizontal line across so that the planchette landed on NO.

"Richie, are you doing this? Stop it now," Lucinda cried.

"Shh, be quiet. I'm not doing anything," Richie hissed. "Spirit, what do you want?"

Tom's top lip curled as he made three violent slashes with his finger. Y O U.

"Richie!" tears welled in Lucinda's eyes. "Just leave it alone."

However, as the children went to let go of the planchette and run, they found that they were stuck. It was like an invisible force was pressing down on their fingers, pushing them to the board.

Tom smiled.

"Just pick up the board and run!" Richie barked, jumping to his feet with his and Lucinda's fingers stuck together.

They scampered over to the window and pulled the fabric down. The pole fell with a large bang and light flooded in the room. But Tom wasn't having any of that. With the force that it has been snatched down with, the pole shot back up, causing a sharp crack to fill the air as Lucinda's arm broke.

She cried out in pain and clutched the limb to her chest as the room was plunged back into darkness.

Tom smiled.

"What do we do, Richie? I can't see anything," Lucinda whimpered.

Richer gritted his teeth and took in another breath, "Spirit, please let us have light. Please. I beg of you to let us have some light!"

Tom shook his head at Richie's naïvety and initiated the next part of his cunning scheme. It took more concentration than it took to move the planchette but once he focused the energy into his fingertips, he leant out his pale hand and pointed at the discarded match beside the bed. It shifted slightly before lighting. The flame was only small to begin with, and Richie and Lucinda didn't notice.

The flame flickered slightly and as Tom blew through the gap in the door, it made contact with bed sheet frills.

It took seconds for the bed to go up in flames and soon the curtains were alight, also. Richie and Lucinda screamed out loud and clung helplessly to each other as the fire licked at their clothing. The Ouija board still clung at their skin.

Tom smiled.

* * *

Matron Dennis was knitting a scarf for one of the new residents when she heard the scream. Wool's was a pretty noisy place with children playing tag and screaming at the top of their voices while doing so. But this scream wasn't a gleeful exclamation. It was terror-filled.

The woman jumped up to her feet and placed the half knitted scarf on the corner table, the needles still holding it all together, before running in the general direction of the yell. She knocked open the doors in the west corridor as she went but only got the curious gaze of children back at her.

It was approaching the spare bedroom that the waft of smoke reached her nostrils. Her heart began to race as she suddenly began to run to the door. Children's cries could be heard clearly from the room, smoke billowing from under the trim of the door. Matron Dennis grappled for the handle but it wouldn't budge.

"Children! Who's in there? Open this door right now!"

"Help us, Matron! Help! There's a fire in here!" Lucinda and Richie yelled tearfully.

The woman stepped back and pushed against the door with all of her might but it wasn't enough. Going to attempt again, her foot snagged on something and twisted her ankle. She hissed in pain and looked down to see that she had tripped over a pair of black shoes. In neat, looped writing read TOM RIDDLE.

"Tom! Is this your doing?!"

"He's in here! He's burning, help!" Lucinda sobbed.

Matron Dennis got a sudden burst of inspiration and picked up the lamp from the end table next to her. She raised it above her head and sent it crashing down on the handle. The porcelain shattered and a small click was heard. The door swung open violently and sooty-faced, coughing Lucinda and Richie came barrelling out into the corridor.

"Where's Tom?" Matron asked urgently.

"On… the b-bed," Richie finished with a hacking cough.

Matron Dennis covered her mouth and nose with the lapel of her blazer and ducked into the smokey room.

"Tom?!" she yelled before coughing.

She scanned the room's floor looking for the boy but to no avail. She shouted again.

"Here," Tom droned in his silky, too-mature voice.

The matron spun on her heel and gasped as she made out Tom's form. He was sat cross-legged on the bed, surrounded by the flames. His face was placid and nonchalant, as if he were surrounded by blades of grass not a ring of fire. His face was tinged orange but the flames were not touching him.

"Tom, get out of there!" Matron Dennis screamed.

There was a crowd accumulating on the path outside. The other staff had been alerted by the smoke and had ushered the other children safely outside.

"Tom, I don't have time for your games! Get out here or you are going to burn," the matron pleaded in a raspy voice.

Tom smiled.

The smoke finally overcame Matron Dennis and she had no choice but to back out of the room to vomit. If Tom wouldn't come out, he was killing himself. She had to choose whether it was going to be her or him. She was lightheaded and faint. Everything seemed to spin. She hit the floor with a dull thud.

That was when I arrived. The matron wasn't dead, just unconscious. It was the boy that I was after. I stepped into the room and watched as the smoke parted to let me through. Even smoke fears me. Even inanimate objects fear me.

But Tom didn't. He just, again, smiled. As he had done as a baby.

We locked eyes. He lifted his left hand and snapped his fingers together. All at once, the flames withdrew into themselves and extinguished. All that was left were smouldering cinders in little heaps around the bed. The quilt was charcoaled and jet black, yet there Tom sat unscathed. Clean amongst the filth.

I took a step back and regressed back into the hallway. I was no longer needed. I wouldn't be taking Riddle that day.

In his hand was the Ouija board, unburnt. He would rather have liked to keep it as a trophy. Yes... put it with the others in the wardrobe.

Tom smiled.

* * *

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**Abby**

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	4. Chapter 4

So that was the story of Tom Riddle and the Ouija Board. It sounds like a children's story book doesn't it? Tom Riddle goes to the Park. Tom Riddle goes Swimming. Tom Riddle and his New Coat. Tom Riddle and the Ouija Board.

I'm getting off track. Forgive me. I know that I use this journal as an outlet of ranting much too often than I should, but today has been _so difficult._ People just don't want to go anymore! It doesn't matter what I do, they fight tooth and nail just to avoid me. I mean, how rude!

Anyway, back on with the tale., I have nothing better to do. Next I believe I shall show you the aftermath of the Ouija incident.

I had been casually cruising the streets of London that day. All seemed unseasonably calm considering that most deaths occur in winter – hyperthermia and whatnot – so I found myself with a little free time on my hands.

And so I decided to visit our little friend. Or rather our little _fiend_. It is peculiar how similar the two words are, isn't t?

It was 24th January 1936, two days previous to the mysterious and unexplained fire at Wool's Orphanage. The wardens were on even higher alert than usual and children were told that if they were to leave their rooms, they had to travel in packs of three. Rather useless if you ask me. If something were to happen to them, the only person that would benefit would be me, three for the price of one.

Nonetheless, the rule had been officialised and the children obeyed without complaint. At least all but one of them did.

Tom was sat on a bed, his spindly legs crossed and a look of furious concentration on his face. His eyes were burning a hole in the wardrobe opposite him. No, that isn't a figure of speech. He was physically burning a hole into the wardrobe.

The room wasn't his, it was a boy called Charlie Wick's. Tom had overheard him speaking to one of his friends after the fire.

_"I bet it was that Riddle boy," Charlie had whispered to his best friend Cordelia. "He's a freak, that one."_

_"I know," Cordelia had agreed. "Do you think he's an arsonist?"_

_"I think he's an arse," Charlie had laughed, Cordelia joining him._

They had had no idea that Tom had been watching them, stood out on the pavement whilst the fire crew sorted the spare bedroom out. They hadn't seen the look in his eye, somehow both furious and deadly calm. They had just laughed their carefree laugh, blissfully unaware of the cogs turning in Tom's messed-up mind.

Now it was time for payback. Tom was almost finished the said payback and ended his scripture with a flourish of his hand, jumping down from the bed. He stepped back to admire his handiwork.

The wood of the wardrobe was charred and burnt in the words; _You're the Arse Around Here! _

A small niggling headache was worming its way into the back of Tom's brain. He supposed that he had strained himself too much again, but that didn't matter. He had to carry on. He had another room to visit and another note to leave. He had to be swift, though. The group would be returning back from the park in only a few minutes.

He slipped out of the room, making sure to click the door shut behind him. His footsteps were light as always as he sauntered to the room two doors down. He opened the door and repeated the process, this time standing next to Cordelia's vanity unit and glowering at the mirror.

It began to glow a soft auburn before intensifying into a scarlet flame. As Tom moved his eyes, the flame followed like a pen sporting fiery ink. Instead of forming words, however, Tom decided to be a little more creative. With a smirk, he drove his gaze to create a picture. A woman with a rope around her neck. Everyone knew about Cordelia's suicidal mother. Everyone had their story here at Wool's.

The front door slamming suddenly shocked Tom out of his dazed state and reminded him to get out of Cordelia's room and into his own as quickly as he could. He jumped to attention and edged out of the door just in time for Cordelia and Charlie to round the corner.

"What are you staring at, freak?" Charlie sneered as Tom moved to go back to his room.

Tom calmly looked up at him with his trademark emotionless face. He said nothing. He didn't need to.

Charlie suddenly seemed to realie who he was talking to. A fleck of fear sparked in Charlie's eyes, and positively flamed in Cordelia's.

"Y-you just leave us alone, Tom. We haven't done anything to you," she stumbled, stepping back behind Charlie.

The corner of Tom's lip quirked up marginally.

"Step out of my way," he commanded coolly.

"Only if you step out of ours."

Tom raised a perfect eyebrow, "Is that a challenge?"

Charlie bristled, red patches blotching the bridge of his nose and cheeks. But he didn't retort, he knew where answering back to Tom Riddle got you. Even the staff knew.

"Dinner's ready," Tom continued smoothly.

"How do you-?"

A sharp ding of the dinner bell split the air.

Tom just grinned. Cordelia flattened down her pleated skirt and had to drag Charlie away from where he was staring at Tom, debating whether or not to say something. He reluctantly followed Cordelia's tugging arm, but was glad in a way that she was making him leave. It made him seem less like a coward.

Tom watched them trot down the stairs, the clip-clop of their uniform black shoes quickening the further they got away from him. Tom laughed softly under his breath before following them downstairs into the dining room.

The table was a mismatch of three tables joined together to fit the considerate amount of residents at Wool's. It was glossed black like most of the furniture at the orphanage, but chunks had been chipped out by bored children.

Tom stopped in the doorway and watched as all twelve children took their seats in the dimly lit room. Charlie and Cordelia had shuffled as far back as they could away from the only empty seat, knowing who was about sit on it.

"Are you coming in, Tom?" Matron Myers asked brightlyy.

He shifted his gaze to her. She was the youngest of the staff, being only nineteen. She had grown up in Wool's herself and unable to find work, she had returned in search of a job. Her hair was long, curly and blonde. It was obviously her centrepiece since she kept flicking it off her shoulder and fiddling with the ends. Tom may have to intervene with that. He didn't approve of vanity.

"Yes, miss."

He walked purposefully over to his chair and let it screech on the slate floor as he pulled it back. Everyone winced at the sound but didn't dare comment. Last time someone had complained to Tom, his hamster mysteriously disappeared. Until it reappeared. Disembowelled and nailed to the door.

Tom sat down lightly into his chair and looked down at his food. Leftovers from that morning's porridge.

"You going to eat up, Tom?" Matron Myers asked again with a sweet, innocent smile upon her face.

You could tell that she was new.

"I'm not eating this," Tom stated.

"Oh, come on now, it isn't that bad!" Matron Myers laughed loudly and patroizingly. "You have to eat up or you'll go hungry tonight!"

She was clueless to the warning glances being screamed at her from the other people in the room, both staff and children alike.

Tom narrowed his eyes. He felt anger begin to stab at his veins. That stupid laughter. That stupid, stupid laughter.

He abruptly stood up, his chair scraping horribly against the floor again. Matron Myers looked affronted.

"Sit down this instant, Tom. Don't be so childish, I was only joking with you."

"Well I am not joking with you," Tom ground out, coldness in his voice like pure ice.

Matron Myers was speechless as Tom walked out of the room. She had expected him to run and have a childish tantrum like the other children she had encountered, but that was what was so terrifying. His walk was so slow and so… haunting.

She cleared her throat and fixed her hair to recover herself. She turned to the rest of the children that had paused with their forks halfway to their mouths, fear clearly etched in their faces.

She forced her voice to be light.

"Come on. Don't let one silly boy ruin your meal, fill up," she encouraged with a fake smile on her lips.

The children began to slowly resume their eating, a few brave ones striking quiet conversations. Matron Myers carried on with her own meal, but cast a wary glance at the darkened corridor through the open door.

* * *

Wool's Orphanage was deathly silent. As I moved through each room, the soft wisps of sleepy breaths indicated sleeping children. Rooms one to twelve were all sleeping. Room thirteen was not.

Tom stood completely still with his arm crooked, staring down at the watch on his wrist. He nodded, it was time. Exactly one o'clock in the morning.

He quietly opened his door and walked down the corridor. Matron Myers was on duty that night, and was staying in the staff bedroom. It was the end room of the corridor with a sterling silver plaque – the only one in Wool's – saying STAFF.

Tom's hand clasped around the handle and jerked it slowly anticlockwise, a rush of the familiar danger and excitement gushing through him.

The bed was a double king size with thick, woollen curtains draping from the four poster bed. There were hundreds of notts in the wood, looking almost as if some cheeky person had lit a cigarette and held it too close to the frame. Judging by her stained tongue and tinged teeth, I wouldn't have put it past Miss Myers.

Tom stepped silently into the room and made his way over to stand by the bed. A large bulge protruded from the duvet, outlining the shape of a slumbering Matron Myers. Her hair was splayed out on her pillow, framing her head like a shimmering blonde halo. Tom peered down into her face an felt his top lip curl up into a snarl.

He could hear the mocking laughter coming from her pink, full lips though the only sound really escaping waseven, sleepy breaths. It was first the laughter of Myers herself, then shifting into the giggles of Charlie and Cordelia. Tom clapped his hands to his ears and willed himself to hear something - anything – other than that. The dreaded noise transferred itself into something that was much more familiar to Tom: the screams of Lucinda and Richard as their 'ghost' appeared.

Screams, he could understand. Anger, he could understand. It was happiness that he didn't, and not knowing scared him. And he couldn't be scared. He couldn't afford to be scared. So he had to get rid of it.

He summoned the tingling in into his palms, this time causing a small amount of pain. He figured that it was because his emotions were raw. And there was no rawer emotion than fear. He channeled the tingling further into his fingertips, a layer of pain-induced sweat forming on his brow. His skin began to glow vibrant orange, crackling like the fire it held behind it.

"I will not be scared," Tom whispered deliriously.

It was time. He reached out with his burning hand and clasped the golden locks of Matron Myers. Tom couldn't help but note how silky the hair felt. It wouldn't be for much longer. A thin trail of smoke rose from the hair, no thicker than a couple of fingers, worming its way through the air like a snake charmed out of its basket.

The hair started to fizz, it being slightly damp still from the Matron's bath before she went to sleep. It fizzed and popped, Tom's skin doing the same. But he couldn't cry out, he couldn't be scared anymore.

Finally, the hair became loose in his hand and Tom uncurled his fist, allowing the individual strands to fall to the floor, burnt, black, and severed. As soon as the link was broken, Tom thought that the pain would stop, but it was still there. He gritted his teeth and cradled his hand to his chest. He hissed quietly.

Matron Myers stirred slightly at the sound, letting out a soft snore and turning on her side. Despite the pain, Tom was powerless to grin at his handiwork as he was given a full view of her scalp. The hair was brutally short now, only two inches long. The ends were burnt to badly that they were ash, crumbling away at every breath the woman gave.

_Teach her to laugh. Teach her to be happy. Teach her to scare me._

* * *

Tom had retreated from the bedroom and had hurried to the boys bathroom on the second floor as quickly as he could. He stood there now – I following – and hunched over one of the sinks. His face was twisted in pain as he turned on the tap and allowed the basin to fill will cold water.

His left hand was tinged pink with a little skin peeling off at the more fleshy parts of the hand. It was a little painful, but no more so than what it feels like when you have been in the cold too long and then suddenly dunk your hands in warm water.

His right hand was much worse. The skin was black and already bruised, swelling to almost double its normal size. A large open sore lay in the palm, stretching the full length of his hand. Blood fizzed and bubbled from the cut, running down his wrists and dropping slowly into the water.

Tom watched in morbid fascination as his blood stained the water tumbling over it and streamed as a scarlet tsunami into the bottom. Another drop broke the surface, veining off like a cancer. Little vines of crimson. Beautiful.

Tom looked up into the cracked mirror above the sink. His face was pale and clammy, pain reflected in his eyes. He knew he was different. He knew that he was the outsider. Orphan thirteen when there should have been a straight dozen. He broke the even, Tom the Odd.

And yet, despite all of this, he wasn't scared. He was powerful. That was all that mattered. As long as there was suffering, nothing else mattered. I rather live by the same principle.

* * *

**I am very sorry about the wait but summer is coming up so I should be able to update more frequently. **

**In other news, it is my 14th birthday today! **

**Thank you to WolfOfLilacs and Ladymadonna1899 for reviewing. Replies are being sent to you now!**

**Thanks for reading**

**Please review,**

**Abby**


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